


certain dark things

by drfitzmonster



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Past Sexual Abuse, Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-08 15:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14108844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drfitzmonster/pseuds/drfitzmonster
Summary: Lena and Kara have been dating for six months, and everything has been wonderful. Except they haven't had sex yet. Lena wants to, very badly, but first she has to figure out how to tell Kara about her past.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In an attempt to write through some things I am currently dealing with, I have created this angsty mess. My intention was to finish it completely before posting, but I think that if I don't post this first part I'll just never finish it. And it needs to be finished.
> 
> **Trigger Warning:** This fic includes mentions of past childhood sexual abuse, and the long-lasting effects of that trauma, through the lens of someone in the very early stages of recovery.

Kara finally mustered up the courage to ask Lena out on a date on a Thursday. It happened all of the sudden, during a particularly mundane moment in Lena’s office at the L-Corp building. They were sitting on Lena’s couch, shoulders pressed together, the remains of their lunch scattered over the coffee table. They were both idly looking through their phones.

Out of nowhere, Kara blurted, “Go out with me.”

“What?” Lena must have been hearing things. She could have sworn she’d just heard Kara ask her out.

“Go out with me. On a date.”

 _Oh_. “You want to go out with me?”

“Yes.” Kara nodded, smiling brightly. “Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

Lena felt her face flush. She couldn’t hold Kara’s gaze, but she nodded. “Yes. I... I think I would like that very much.”

That was six months ago. Six wonderful months during which Lena felt more, loved, supported, cherished, and wanted than she ever had in her entire life. Everything was so wonderful, and she had never been happier.

Kara was dashing and chivalrous, and so very gentle with Lena. She had the kindest eyes, a calming blue that grounded her whenever she looked into them. When she saw herself reflected back in them she felt at home. She felt safe.

It was more than Lena could’ve hoped for. It was perfect.

Except.

They hadn’t had sex yet.

It wasn’t that Lena didn’t want to. She did. She did, so badly sometimes she felt like she was drowning in her own desire. But she was afraid.

She was afraid that even the need she felt coiled tightly in her belly wouldn’t be enough to overcome the fear and the dread and the shame and guilt, and all of the sticky, murky, fuzzy things that scratched around in her brain.

Things that clawed at the backs of her eyes while she slept, that pressed on her chest until she couldn’t breathe. Things that lurked about in her nightmares, and crept into her days as well, lingering in a raised voice or a long shadow, in the scent of a certain cologne, or on the face of a stranger.

Things that she desperately did not want to be true.

Things she hadn’t told Kara about.

How could she? It was all so terrible. She didn’t want Kara, who cared for her so very deeply, to have to carry the burden of knowing. She couldn’t bear to see the hurt in Kara’s eyes, the kind she always saw whenever she talked about the way Lillian treated her.

Lena knew this would be much worse.

If she told Kara then the sickness would infect her too. The poison that lived inside Lena would seep into Kara’s veins, and she couldn’t let that happen. Kara was too good, and she had burdens of her own to carry. Like the real, actual burden of protecting an entire planet from harm.

All of that was why, for what seemed like the thousandth time, Lena was suddenly startled from their rather intense makeout session on Kara’s couch.

She pulled back, muttering “I’m sorry,” and quickly slid down from where she’d been straddling Kara’s lap. That was the position she preferred to be in when they kissed. It made her feel more in control.

Kara seemed to understand, or at the very least, didn’t seem to mind. She didn’t seem to mind anything, really. She just took it all in stride. Every time Lena put a stop to whatever they were doing, even when Kara looked particularly flustered, even when her eyes were dark and she was panting heavily, she would just smile and stroke the side of Lena’s cheek gently.

Like now.

“It’s ok, baby. Whatever you need. We have all the time in the world.” She said, taking Lena’s hand.

Kara’s gentle patience was too much, so much more than Lena deserved. She burst into tears.

Kara was so sweet and good, and Lena loved and trusted her so much. All she wanted to do was show her. She wanted to have sex with Kara. She knew Kara wanted her, but that she would never ever pressure her.

Kara loved her so well, so softly and sweetly and thoroughly. She just wanted to love her back. She wanted to be able to share this part of herself with Kara. She wanted to connect with her physically. She wanted Kara to show her that sex could be good, not just something dark and sick and violating that was forced upon her against her will.

But she had to tell Kara the truth first.

She knew she did.

She just didn’t know how.

So she cried. She cried and cried and Kara held her and let her sob herself to sleep. She woke with her head pillowed on Kara’s chest, a blanket tugged over the both of them. Kara was snoring loudly, head tilted back, mouth agape.

Lena couldn’t help but laugh, just a little.

Kara’s head snapped up. “What? What happened?” She blinked her eyes blearily and looked down at Lena. “Oh. Hey, baby. Sorry I dozed off,” she said, stifling a yawn behind her hand.

“It’s ok. I was asleep too... Your snoring could wake the dead though. Is that normal?”

“I can’t help it. It’s my powerful Kryptonian lungs.”

“Of course.” Lena sat up fully, stretching her arms above her head. She glanced at her watch. “Oh wow, it’s past 11. We should probably go to bed?”

Before long they were both in their pajamas and sliding into Kara’s bed. They may not have had sex yet, but they’d been sleeping together since well before they became a couple.

It all started when Lena had a really bad nightmare and called Kara crying. Kara came rushing over to comfort her and wound up staying the night. After that it became a regular thing. Kara would come to her when she had nightmares, and Lena would sleep over on movie nights.

Lena stayed at Kara’s the night of their first date, and she sort of never left. They hadn't moved in together. Lena still had her penthouse, where they would stay on rare occasions. But mostly she slept at Kara’s. She had her own drawer and space in the closet.

It felt like home to her, much more than her expansive, minimalist, impersonal penthouse ever had. She felt safe and secure there. In Kara’s apartment, in Kara’s bed, wrapped in her arms.

She pushed her body back into Kara’s, sighing. She felt so cold sometimes, cold down into her bones, but Kara could always warm her up. She radiated heat, and light, and brightness. Lena could feel it seeping into her slowly. She wanted it to fill every crack and crevice inside of her until not a shadow remained, until she was completely suffused with light.

Maybe then the demons would leave her. Maybe then nightmares, and the panic attacks, and the crying fits would stop. Maybe then she would feel whole.

“Lena?” Kara asked softly, breath warm against her ear.

“Yeah?”

“Do you maybe want to talk about what happened earlier? Why you got so upset? I understand if you’re not ready right now. I just want you to know that I’m here when you are.”

Lena started crying again. Why did Kara have to be so perfect? It made her feel so much more guilty.

“Hey, hey, Lena,” Kara cooed at her, shifting her around so she could look at her. “I’m sorry I said anything. I know you’ll talk to me when you are able, ok?” She stroked Lena’s hair gently.

Lena buried her face against Kara’s chest and let herself sob. She’d heard people talk about crying "until you just can’t cry anymore,” but right now she felt like she could cry for a hundred years and she still wouldn’t be out of tears.

“I want to tell you, I just... I don’t know how. And if I tell you, then you’ll _know_ , and it’ll be real.” Lena sniffled, drawing in a breath, trying to keep herself calm. “I don’t want it to be real.”

Kara wrapped Lena in the cocoon of her arms, rocking her gently. “It’s ok, baby. You’re safe now. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to get through this and I’m going to be here with you the whole time. I promise.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never wanted it to be like this. You’re so good to me. You buy me things and cook me dinner and I’m just such a mess. I cry constantly. I cringe when you touch me sometimes. I can’t even imagine what you think of me.”

“You want to know what I think of you?” Kara cupped the side of Lena’s face, running her thumb along her cheekbone. “I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I think you are kind, and generous, and caring, and so, so good.” She took Lena’s hand, kissing her knuckles. “I think you put on a brave face, but you’re hurting, and you think you have to carry that all by yourself. But you don’t. You don’t have to do it alone.”

“I’ve always been alone, Kara. There’s never been anyone else before.”

“Well now I’m here. You have someone who will stand up for you, always,” Kara said softly, bringing their foreheads together.

“I’m not worth it,” Lena said, so quietly she herself could hardly hear it.

Kara framed Lena’s face with both of her hands. “Of course you are. You’re worth everything to me.” She pulled her into a firm embrace.

Lena let herself relax into Kara, let her strong arms and her warmth comfort her, and as she drifted off to sleep she heard Kara whispering in her ear.

“You are _everything_ to me, Lena.”

 

* * *

 

The night she decided to tell Kara the truth she drank half a bottle of scotch before Kara got home. She didn’t think she’d be able to find the words if she were sober. Her brain fought her too hard. She needed to dull the alarm bells in her head that went off every time she tried to talk about it. Every time she even tried to think about it.

Lena was tired of feeling so sick all the time. It was this oppressive sense of wrongness that followed her everywhere. It made her skin crawl and her stomach churn. It desperately made her want to escape her own body. If only she could.

She would have to settle for the numbing effects of liquor.

She was compulsively cleaning their already near-spotless kitchen when Kara got home. She needed to be doing something, anything, so she wouldn’t feel so fucking useless, and scrubbing the granite countertops as furiously as her mind was spinning seemed to help her stay calm.

Lena was so scared that she’d lose her nerve that she blurted out a tearful, “I’m drunk,” as soon as Kara walked in the door.

And, of course, perfect, attentive Kara rushed over to her, took the sponge out of her hand, and brought her to the couch.

“What’s going on, baby? Why did you drink tonight?”

“So I could talk to you.”

“Lena, I want you to talk to me when you’re ready,” Kara said, smiling softly at her. “I’ll wait for you, as long as it takes.”

“I’m never going to be ready, Kara. But I can’t keep living like this. I can’t, and the only thing I know to do is drink until I can talk.” Lena hid her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m like this.”

“Sorry you’re like what? Sorry you’re in pain and struggling? Sorry you were hurt and it affected you? Don’t be sorry. I love you, baby, and I want to be here for you.”

Lena didn’t say anything for a while. She sat with her eyes closed, trying in vain to bite back the tears that were flowing freely thanks to the scotch.

She looked at Kara, at her brow knit in earnest concern, at her eyes, so wide, so serene. She wished she could just disappear into them, live there forever, be nothing but a muscle opening and closing an aperture against the light.

Lena opened her mouth to speak. She didn’t know what to say. What the fuck was she supposed to say? How could she even start? “I... when I was young,” she stopped, clearing her throat of the sob forming there, willing the bile in her stomach to stop rising up, “someone...”

Lena turned away, frustrated that even the alcohol wasn’t loosening her tongue the way she’d hoped it would. She balled her hands into fists in her lap and huffed out a breath. She couldn’t bear to look at Kara’s face when she said it, couldn’t bear the thought of watching Kara try to mask her sadness behind a reassuring smile.

“Something... _bad_ happened to me when I was young. I don’t remember very much, just bits and pieces, and they don’t always make sense and I...”

Lena paused, shaking her head to try and free herself of a memory: the smell of cigarette smoke, an enormous hand gripping her arm, too tightly, a gruff but familiar voice. She felt sick.

“Lena, are you ok?”

“Yeah... I just... Sometimes I get these flashes of things, and I just, um...” She pressed her closed palms to her forehead and growled through gritted teeth. “I don’t want it to be true,” she said through a sob, shuddering, finally giving up her attempts to fight back the tears, “but it _happened_. Even if I can’t remember much. It happened.”

And then Lena started crying in earnest, because she’d said it out loud, and it was out there now, in the world, the knowledge of it, like a little cloud of poison loosed into the air.

“Is it ok if I touch you?”

“Um, I’m not sure right now,” Lena said, sounding small, feeling small. She wanted reassurance, she did, but she just felt... wrong. Like she should be as far away from every other person as she could possibly get. Like she should be off in a dark hole somewhere, where no one could hurt her and the poison couldn’t spread.

“Ok, well how about I’m right here, and if you want to come closer you can? Does that sound ok?”

Lena nodded, still unable to look at Kara. She sat for a few minutes with her back turned to her, arms wrapped around herself. She wanted so badly to go to Kara, but she couldn’t move, she was frozen, trembling and stuck.

“Kara, please,” she called out, and she was immediately enfolded in Kara’s arms.

“I’ve got you. I’m right here.” She pulled Lena flush against her chest.

Lena clutched at Kara’s arms wrapped tight around her midsection. “I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you. I just... I didn’t want to upset you.”

Kara kissed the side of her head. “I’ll be ok, baby. I just want to help you. Don’t worry about upsetting me. I can handle it.”

Lena turned around so she could watch Kara’s face for a moment. She was smiling, not her bright, beaming, megawatt smile, but something more subdued. It would have seemed completely genuine were it not for the slight strain around her eyes, the ever so subtle furrow in her brow.

“I just hate making you sad,” Lena said, adding quickly when she saw Kara open her mouth to protest, “You pretend that it doesn’t hurt you but I know it does.” She reached up and touched the crinkle between Kara’s eyebrows.

Kara sighed. “I’m only sad because I love you so much. But what makes me even sadder is thinking about you trying to deal with this all alone. That’s what really hurts me, Lena.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. But I want to be here for you, to help you through this.” She picked up Lena’s hand and gave it a gently squeeze. “When you’re ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may not be able to respond to any comments, but you can drop me an ask on tumblr if you want and I'll do my best to get back to you in a timely fashion: [drfitzmonster.tumblr.com/ask](https://drfitzmonster.tumblr.com/ask)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I have not been able to respond to any of your comments on the first chapter. I have read them all and they mean a lot to me.
> 
> This chapter is short, but I needed to post it.

“Have you ever thought about seeing a therapist?” Kara asked one night after another aborted attempt at fooling around. “Not because this isn’t enough. I mean, honestly, Lena I feel like the luckiest woman alive because I get to wake up next to you every morning. You just seem really upset, and you’ve been so depressed lately.”

“When I was in college I started having these... memories. I told Lillian about them and sent me to a therapist who told me it was all in my imagination.”

Kara drew Lena into her arms, and sighed sadly. “I’m talking about a real therapist, not one of your mother’s quacks. I think talking to a professional who has experience dealing with people with trauma might help you.”

Lena didn’t know what to say. She so very much wanted to please Kara, especially after everything she’d done for her. But she was afraid. She was terrified of walking into a therapist’s office to have them tell her she’s liar or a fraud or a fake, and shame on her for trying to steal from victims of _real_ trauma.

Or worse.

They could believe her.

Ever since she’d made her drunken confession to Kara, she’d been trying to convince herself she was wrong. She spent hours and hours in her office combing through medical databases looking for articles about traumatic amnesia and the veracity of recovered memories. She read through entire issues of journals on traumatic stress and neurobiology and child abuse.

She was looking for a Get Out of Jail Free card, something that would say “you’re full of shit and attention-seeking and maybe you should go to therapy for _that_.”

That is not what she found. She found articles describing the exact mechanism by which neuropeptides released in the brain due to stress interfere with the encoding of memory. She found study after study after study suggesting that dissociative amnesia during a traumatic event was, in fact, fairly common, especially in young children.

She didn’t know what to do with all of the information. It didn’t tell her anything substantive, really. It didn’t answer any of her questions, and it especially didn’t answer the most important one.

_Is it real? Are my feelings real? Are my memories real? Is my pain real? Am I real?_

She felt no closer to the truth than she did when she started, but she just couldn’t stop. Surely, somewhere in the depths of the deep web, behind a paywall, in a supplementary back issue of some obscure journal long out of print, there must be _something._

ABSTRACT: Lena Luthor was sexually abused at the age of 5 by one of her father’s business associates. This article recounts, in thorough and one hundred percent accurate detail, exactly what happened, the frequency and severity and long term effects, the damage to structures in the brain, the impairment of memory and cognition, the disturbance of psychosocial development. Photographs, charts, graphs, and other incontrovertible evidence are included.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

ABSTRACT: No one touched you when you were little. Why would anyone want to? You’re just trying to get attention. You’ve always been jealous of Lex and how much smarter and more talented he is than you. Stop being so melodramatic. There’s nothing to be upset about. Your father would be ashamed of the way you’re acting.

Lena felt sick, but she kept looking.

She didn’t realize how completely obsessive she’d become until one night Kara touched down on the balcony of her office.

“What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting at the restaurant.”

“Yeah. We were supposed to. Three hours ago. I texted you like twenty times. And called you. I waited at the restaurant for an hour because I thought you may have gotten tied up on the phone or something, but then I had to go help with a fire.”

She looked at the clock on her laptop. “Oh my god. It’s 10!” It startled her, and as she turned toward Kara she knocked a thick stack of articles off her desk.

Kara rushed to pick them up before Lena could stop her. She read their titles as she went, first just to herself, but increasingly louder as she sifted through them. “‘Functional Neuroanatomical Correlates of the Effects of Stress on Memory’? ‘Dysfunctional Cognitions and Adult Psychological Functioning in Child Sex Abuse Survivors’? ‘Dissociation, Somatization, and Affect Dysregulation’? ‘Internal Verification and Corroboration of Traumatic Memories of Child Sex Abuse’? Lena what is all this? What are you doing?”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She hid her face in her hands. She looked up, wiping angrily at the tears that were collecting in the corners of her eyes. “I just... There’s this... darkness inside of me, and I’m just trying to figure out how to fix it. I don’t want to hate myself anymore.”

Kara dropped the papers and edged closer to Lena. She took both of Lena’s hands, rubbing her thumbs over her knuckles. “Can I take you somewhere?” she asked softly. “Please?”

Lena nodded.

Kara bundled her up in her coat and the throw blanket from her office couch, and scooped her up. She carried her out to the balcony, saying, “Hold on tight,” as she took off into the night sky.

Lena closed her eyes and hid her face against Kara’s chest. Flying scared her, but she always felt safe in Kara’s arms.

After what seemed like no time at all Lena could tell they’d come to a stop, that Kara was just hovering.

“You can open your eyes now.”

Lena lifted her head and blinked her eyes open, taking in her surroundings. They were high, higher than Kara’d ever taken her before. The moon was behind them, and star-peppered blackness stretched in every direction except directly below, where the lights of the surface glittered.

It was breathtaking actually, if terrifying.

“It wasn’t black in the Phantom Zone, really, it was more gray. Not bright, not dark, not anything, just... gray. It was so vast and empty and lonely, but... sometimes I miss the quiet. So I come up here. It’s not the exact same, but it’s peaceful.

“Darkness isn’t _bad_ , Lena. It doesn’t have to be. Look at how beautiful it is up here. This darkness is comforting to me. It makes me think of possibility, of potential. Out there somewhere, galaxies are being born, stars are dying, entire planets full of people are living their lives, with all the beauty and the horror that entails. But right here, right now, you wouldn’t know.

“It’s just... still.

“We may live our lives in the sun, Lena, but sometimes we have to go back to the darkness so that we can rest, and heal.”

Lena shivered. She didn’t know if it was from the cold, or Kara’s words, or just the vastness of the night sky from this far above the Earth. Everything felt so far away. She could almost tune out the dread and panic that was constantly thrumming through her veins. She could almost believe what Kara was saying.

Darkness didn’t feel quite so sinister when they were there together, enveloped in a sea of it. The cold was starting to get to her, though. She could feel her body start to tremble as it seeped into her.

“You’re shaking,” Kara said, holding Lena tighter. “We better go back now. I don’t want you to freeze.”

“Can we stay a little longer?”

“Yeah, of course. Anything you need.” Kara wrapped her cape around Lena, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

They hovered there in silence for just a few moments more. Lena wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of perspective making her feel this way, but for the first time in a very, very long time, she felt like maybe she could find a way out of this, like maybe she could be ok, someday.

She sighed and curled into the familiar warmth of Kara’s body. “Take me home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may not be able to respond to any comments, but you can drop me an ask on tumblr if you want and I'll do my best to get back to you in a timely fashion: [drfitzmonster.tumblr.com/ask](https://drfitzmonster.tumblr.com/ask)

**Author's Note:**

> If you are a survivor of sexual violence and you need help, you can chat online with a crisis support specialist from [RAINN](https://www.rainn.org/) here: [ https://online.rainn.org/](https://online.rainn.org/), or (if you are in the US) you can call their toll free number: 800.656.HOPE (4673).
> 
> I have used RAINN's online chat myself and the person I chatted with was very kind, and validating, and reassuring, and she was able to connect me with some really good resources.


End file.
